Desolation
by Guardian of Light 987
Summary: It happened in an instant. One attack and her future was torn from her grasp, only able to be regained encased in a cold hard metal shell... Unless, there was another way...


**Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters, locations or any part of the RWBY universe, owned by Rooster Teeth. All I own are my own OC's.**

How could this have happened?

The last thing that she remembered was the flash of red, and then pain. Pain so powerful that it overcame all thought, all emotion. Pain so intense that there was no way to describe. Pain so bad it caused her to black out. Now all she was left with was darkness, all consuming, all seeing. She couldn't see, she couldn't hear. Did this mean… she was dead?

She had told herself that if she ever died, it would be either doing what she loved, or protecting her friends. Even though she had accomplished the latter, or at least tried to, Yang admitted to herself that she wasn't ready. She was scared of what came next. There were so many things in life she hadn't done yet. She'd never reached her 18th birthday, she hadn't fully become a huntress, she'd never managed to get her little sister so drunk that she'd be able to video it and embarrass her with it the next day. That one she had been especially been willing to wait for.

Ruby… Yang wondered whether her little sister would be alright. Ruby was a good fighter and she could handle herself, she'd be fine. Yang just hoped that when her little sister found out that she'd fallen in battle, that she'd wouldn't mourn too greatly for her and get on with her life, and that she'd put on her tombstone: _"Here lies Yang, who went out with a bang."_

It was terrible she knew, but that's what made it funny.

A tiny point of light suddenly penetrated the darkness. She'd seen all too much in movies that cheesy quote: " _Don't walk into the light!"_ She didn't think that it actually had any basis in fact.

She wasn't ready to die; she didn't want to die. But one of the earliest lessons she had was that life didn't give you what you wanted. If she had to move on, there was no way she could stop it. She was gripped with trepidation as the light slowly expanded until it blinded her. Then the darkness returned.

Slowly, two lines of light steadily grew larger, until they finally stopped. Two slits through which, _something_ was moving. Wait a second, she was _seeing_ again. Those two slits were the vision from her eyes, which meant…. She wasn't dead!

She whooped to herself in her mind as she grasped the fact that she wasn't actually dead. Now when she woke up she could go and find that White Fang who had put her in this condition and lay the smack down on him. He wouldn't get a lucky swipe in the second time.

But first she had to wake up, and it was more difficult than she thought. Her eyelids refused to budge, they felt like they had the weight of a truck holding each one down, but she wasn't about to give up that easily. With immense effort, she managed to open her eyelids a little more, enough to gain a reasonable degree of vision. Not much, but enough.

For a few seconds her vision was blurry, and all she could see were that points of light passed in front of her at regular intervals. As her vision acclimatised however, she could make out that the lights were coming from, well lights. Bulbs to be precise. She was looking up at some sort of grey metal panel that was moving up steadily, with lightbulbs passing her by ever few seconds. Upon reflection, she concluded that she must be staring at some sort of ceiling, and she was moving, which meant someone was moving her, on what felt like a stretcher.

Suddenly the thought of capture crossed her mind. That White Fang may have taken her prisoner, and this may be their base, where all she could expect was torture, or that this was a hospital, where she could expect help. She seriously hoped it was the latter. Some girls liked being tortured, but she definitely was not one of them. She couldn't bear it if Blake-

Blake! How could she forget such an important detail! The whole reason she was in this state was because she had tried to help her friend. Was she dead? Did she manage to escape? Was she-

" _Whoa Yang, calm down. Let's worry about us first before we worry about Blake okay?"_ She told herself. First she had to figure out her own situation, then she could find Blake.

Yang managed to move her eyes down enough to see what was in front of her. All she could see was a dark grey corridor. Occasionally they would see a door which would open automatically when they neared, and revealed… more corridor.

Yang hoped it was a hospital, but when she saw the door in front of them and it revealed two lines of soldiers, she resigned to herself that she was captured. That was until she examined them.

These guys weren't White Fang. The only term that came to her was… Elite. These guys seemed more elite. They wore black heavy body armour, full face helmets, carried high tech looking guns in their arms, and they walked in synch with a precision that could only come from training. They weren't Atlas either, from what she could tell. She'd never seen their like before, and that worried her slightly.

Her hearing still hadn't returned, which was rather disconcerting when no sound accompanied what she could see. She could however feel a slight _thump, thump, thump,_ on her left side. Curios, she moved her eyes to the left.

What she saw, or rather who she saw; an armoured figure in heavy plate, with a red cape trawling behind him, and that distinctive helmet, was the last person that she expected to see: Drakken.

As shocked as she was by her mysterious… acquaintance's appearance, it did calm her. At least it meant she wasn't in any bad situation. Drakken wouldn't hurt her, she knew that. The armoured knight had already saved her once before from that metal monster that her friend Wulfric had called the 'Zeus', which made those Atlesian knights look like its baby brothers, so she was cool with him. Plus, he made puns, which she always used as a measure of trust, and Drakken admittedly was a high scorer on pun points. Still, she didn't quite trust the dude completely. It was probably because he never showed her well… any part of him; he always wore that armour and never revealed himself. He even had a voice scrambler so his true voice wouldn't be heard. She couldn't fully trust a guy who wanted to hide himself that badly. He had trusted her enough though to enlist her help when his mysterious 'associates' required him to do a task for them, usually involving a lot of punching, shooting etc. Thinking about it, maybe this place was where his associates were, maybe these soldiers were theirs, which made her ask herself a question that she had asked herself many times before: Who exactly were his associates?

But with his appearance, she formulated a plan. When she eventually would be able to manage to rouse herself completely, she'd ask for his help. Oh she was already imagining the look on that White Fang's face when she was back with backup. Drakken was one of the strongest fighters she'd ever known, not many people could attest to being able to break down a concrete wall with their bare hands. With him backing her up, there was no way she could lose. Then she could find-

Then she saw her right side.

There was something… _off_ about her right side. Something was missing… She couldn't see her right hand. She didn't grasp it right away, she thought that she was hallucinating, after all, she'd done it before according to General Ironwood, which she had vehemently denied. But then it hit her, her right arm was… gone.

She hated herself for it, but she couldn't stop herself, she cried. Not physically, but mentally. Her arm was gone, her best arm! That White Fang must have sliced it off with that sword strike. Now she wouldn't be able to ruffle her sister's hair, fist bump, or feel the satisfied crunch when she broke a Beowolf's skull. She knew that she could likely replace it with a prosthetic, but she thought back to a stupid question she had asked Drakken a while back. She had asked whether the guy had prosthetic limbs based on the massive force he had exerted from them, but he had answered:

" _No Yang, I don't have robotic limbs. Prosthetics are efficient, capable, and some would say an upgrade… But they're cold… Lifeless, unfeeling, and so very cold…"_

It terrified her that a robot limb was the only way that she could continue to be a huntress. But she knew a certain young girl who would be more than happy to lose her very precious limb so she could replace it with a cannon, or an arm blade, or frankly any type of weapon.

But Yang didn't want a weapon for an arm, she wanted an arm that could _feel._ But as she knew, life didn't give you what you wanted.

As she wept, the thumping from before became louder, until it manifested itself instead as the distinctive _clank_ of metal hitting metal, and strangely, it was Drakken's armoured boots.

It was strange because with the way he always walked, she could never hear his feet. Ever. He was silent as a ghost, but now his boots slammed into the floor as he strode alongside her. She hadn't noticed it before, but the way he strode, he wasn't just annoyed, he was full blown furious.

Her dad had once said to her that if someone felt an emotion powerfully enough, you could _feel_ it emanating from their aura. People could definitely feel when she herself was angry, but that was her semblance. To tell the truth she'd never felt nor believed it until now. She couldn't explain it, but she could _feel_ his anger, like a churning sea of sky high flames that would burn anything in its path. She witnessed it first-hand when a group of soldiers, instead of walking past them, shirked off to the side to remove themselves from his path. But strangely, she felt something else, a different anger, that although it came from him, it felt… inhuman. Anger like this made her feel like a frightened animal, hiding from a scary predator, with a primal fiery hunger.

She didn't have too much time to ponder it though. They finally reached a door which looked different from the others. It was a lot larger, and opened into four pieces that folded into the frame, instead of the others, which had folded into two.

"I'll take it from here private. Report to your commanding officer." She heard the distinctive techno voice of Drakken's voice scrambler.

"Yes sir!" another voice answered him. One of those soldiers must have been pushing her stretcher.

Two seconds passed before Drakken dangerously growled "Soldier…"

"Y-Yes sir?" The soldier stuttered.

"Arm."

"Oh, right. Sorry sir!"

" _Arm?"_ Yang thought as she heard the soldier speedily march away. She didn't understand what Drakken had meant, but maybe it was some sort of code word. Still, it was very coincidental that he had referred to the thing that had caused her… situation.

She heard Drakken sigh in annoyance before she started moving through the big set of doors. What she was confronted with surprised her; shelves filled with glassware, machines that she couldn't even guess the purpose of and screens that displayed things that she couldn't make out. Overall, it looked like some kind of… lab. Why would Drakken take her to a lab?

"Ahh, there you are Drakken… Is this her?"

This was a new voice. The accent was strange, she'd only heard it from Wulfric, when he spoke that Kriegan lingo of theirs that he called the 'old tongue'. The s' and t's sounded like z's, and the h's were almost silent.

"Yes doctor. Now can you fix it?" She heard Drakken.

She now saw the source of the weird accented voice. She saw an older man, around about professor Ozpin's age she guessed, with very bushy grey hair that seemed to be balding on top. He wore a long white lab coat and a pair of small spectacles which covered his sky blue eyes. His mouth was hidden behind a large moustache, one that professor Port would have been proud of.

"Possibly. It's good that you came so quickly, the nerves and the flesh deteriorate if they are separated for too long. It doesn't take much degrading to make it impossible to fix. Now can you tell me what made this cut? It's extraordinarily clean."

"It was that animal Adam. She attacked him as he was tormenting that former apprentice of his. I swear if I see him again I'll-" Drakken said threateningly.

"I'm not sure the Herald would approve of that Drakken. Or the fact that you brought her to our forward operating base. But don't worry, I'd never leave a patient in this dire of a condition." The doctor replied.

"You can bring that up with Lord Ashe, I had his express permission."

Herald? Yang assumed from the way the doctor said it that this herald was Drakken's boss. Probably even more military lingo that she didn't understand. But she did understand what was happening, this doctor was clearly one of medicine. Drakkken must have brought her hear to save her from bleeding out… again. That's twice she owed him for that now. But what was this talk of degrading?

"Hmm… At least you gave her something for the pain…Fetch the anaesthetic would you? I'd like to have it ready in case she wakes up."

"Don't you have any nurses to assist you with this?" Drakken asked incredulously.

"No, they are all tending to the wounded agents we recovered from the… incident. I'll need you to help me." The doctor replied nonchalantly.

Yang certainly didn't want to wake up if this doctor was doing some sort of procedure. She was quite annoyed that these two were doing this without her consent, but it wasn't like she was in any position to argue with them. Anyways, what they were probably doing was going to save her life, and she would submit herself to anything in order to see her little sister again.

Drakken wheeled in a large tube next to her, with a breathing mask in his left hand. He seemed like he was going to place it on her head when the doctor quickly stopped him.

"No Drakken, I need to add the serum first, and the anaesthetic interferes with its formula. Now be prepared, as she might start convulsing, as you should know. At least I don't have to grow any new material like in your case."

"Just do it quickly Doc, that stuff isn't exactly laughing gas."

That didn't sound good.

The doctor gingerly took hold of what remained of her right arm, and produced a needle that she swore was ten sizes bigger that it needed to be. She expected _something_ when the needle penetrated her skin, but she felt… nothing. No pain, just numbness. For ten seconds, she waited, and then she began to think that nothing would happen.

Then, pain.

Her eyes shot open and her body convulsed as she screamed and screamed in the worst pain she had ever felt in her life. She felt as if a drill was being rammed into her arm, hundreds of knives were being stabbed into her chest and that liquid fire was being poured into her veins.

Drakken firmly pinned her down by her shoulders as he said, "Yang! I know it hurts but you've got to stop jerking around or you'll hurt yourself!"

But she couldn't stop, she just kept screaming as her eyes teared up. The pain was too intense, her arm felt like it was melting and bubbling. She wanted it to end, for any respite from this torture, even death would be less cruel than this. She just wanted it to _end._

Suddenly though she was breathing through a mask, the one Drakken was holding a minute earlier. Slowly, the torturous pain subsided into a dull ache. As Drakken slowly stepped away from her she promised that she would cave his face in when this was over.

Her head started to spin from the anaesthetic as she started to lose consciousness. She saw the doctor look at the stump of her arm and feel it with his left hand. Unlike what she had felt, her stump seemed the same as ever. The doctor then revealed what was in his right hand, some sort of high tech blowtorch that at the moment was spilling hot blue flames, and her heart stopped.

She tried to struggle, to get away from him, but she couldn't, the anaesthetic had removed her motor functions and she was losing consciousness. There was nothing she could do.

Just before the flames of the blowtorch licked her skin, she surrendered to the darkness at the edges of her vision, and she felt no more.

 **Hey guys. This is a bit of a new thing for me, a trailer of sorts for my RWBY fic. I got inspired to do this by volume 3 episode 11 and well… It shocked me as I'm sure it did to you. Yang is one of my favourite characters and to see her in the state she is now really saddened me. I just wanted to write up what I will happen to her in my story… but you'll have to wait to see what happens to her! But back to the actual cannon, I really hope she's okay and I'll be waiting with baited breath for the finale, Just as I'm sure you will too.**

 **Anyways thanks for reading guys! If you enjoyed this, then please check out my RWBY fic: Dark Shadows and Bright Lights. If you would like to critique then by all means, criticism helps me improve. Thanks again guys! Peace!**


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